Pete McMartin: Kirk LaPointe and Gregor Robertson — the politician and the ideologue

Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun columnist11.13.2014

Gregor Robertson and Kirk LaPointe have different political styles, writes Pete McMartin, with one working a room like nobody’s business and the other content to remove himself from public view for months at a time.

When I first heard the rumours that Kirk LaPointe was a possible mayoral candidate for the Non-Partisan Association, I was astounded, and not because he had been one of my editors at The Sun.

I was astounded because in all the years I had worked with him, and in the several times we had lunched together, I had never heard him utter a political opinion. Not once.

I asked other editors at The Sun if their experience with LaPointe was similar to mine, and they all said yes, that despite having worked with him for years, they couldn’t say whether his political views were liberal or conservative, left or right.

This isn’t to say LaPointe didn’t have political opinions. His job was to run a city newsroom, not a city, and since journalism demands a certain objectivity, at least among its senior editors, perhaps he felt it was his professional duty to keep his own views at arm’s length, at least during work hours.

So when he did announce as mayoral candidate for the NPA, there was no “Aha!” moment for me, no recognition that, of course, the NPA was a perfect fit for him, because while I knew he was an able administrator and had a quick and fertile mind and could run a business meeting and a newspaper, I had absolutely no idea what he believed — which was odd, given that he was running for mayor of a major city. Did he think densification was a good thing or bad thing? What did he think of the Green City initiatives? How about climate change? I had no idea what he thought, and if I had no idea after working with him for years, what, I wondered, would he reveal to voters?

As it turns out, not much — and by design, I think. LaPointe hasn’t run so much for something, as against Mayor Gregor Robertson. And I think he astutely decided he hasn’t had to. The overriding theme of his campaign is retrenchment, and surfing the wave of alienation Robertson has generated.

LaPointe’s platform, reflecting this, is an often vaporous collection of promises to look at this or that once he’s elected, while assuring voters that he’ll avoid angering them, as Robertson’s agenda had. Thus, while he began his campaign on a note of sweetness and light, promising to resign if anyone in his party made a personal attack against the opposing camp, the dynamics of the campaign dictated that it get very personal very fast, and it descended into the most negative mayoral cat fight I can recall, complete with LaPointe’s charge of corruption and vote-buying against Robertson, and with Robertson countering with a libel suit against LaPointe. So much for sweetness and light.

Yet LaPointe has run a deft campaign. He seems to be everywhere, he makes himself available, he works a room like nobody’s business. He’s a quick study, coming from nowhere to catch a complacent Vision Vancouver camp by surprise. While LaPointe may be apolitical — and he hasn’t given me any reason to think otherwise — he is, by nature, a talented political animal. If anything will win him the mayor’s chair, it will be that.

Even his admirers and supporters must be wanting to go up to him at this late stage in the campaign and smack him upside the head.

An apology to voters? Delivered during a televised debate two days before the election? It was calculated to cast him in a humbled light, but it was just that — calculated. It had the smell of a craven tactical decision — a Hail Mary mea culpa to show voters that the mayor and Vision Vancouver finally got the message! (And, they would add, sotto voce: Since the polls say we are now in danger of losing the election!) The voters would not be blamed if they wondered: It took you that long to get the message? And we should vote for you why? Because you’re more willing to listen to us now, or merely desperate? And would that apology have been forthcoming if the polls showed the NPA trailing by a wide margin?

It was either the most brilliant bit of campaign strategy or the dumbest. Saturday will tell.

Here’s the thing about Robertson:

He’s never appeared to be comfortable in the role of politician. For a man blessed with all the accoutrements of charisma — good looks, money, a jaw you could split wood with — he fails to project. He seems content to remove himself from public view for months at a time, leaving his lieutenants to do the heavy lifting. His campaign has been lacklustre and defensive, and rather than defend his record, he will be known for apologizing for it. Or as LaPointe observed, apologize for what? Well, what have you got?

Therein lies the irony of this election:

If LaPointe, the challenger, is the natural politician, then Robertson, the politician, is the natural ideologue. You may not agree with his ideas, and you may have good reason not to, but there is no mistaking what they are and where he wants to take the city with them.

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Pete McMartin: Kirk LaPointe and Gregor Robertson — the politician and the ideologue

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